December is Read a New Book month. This is a great opportunity to expose your children to new books. Spend some time focusing on early literacy skills during this month. Your children will enjoy learning and build literacy skills with these fun preschool Read a New Book month activities.

Reading Tree Focus on how many new books the kids can read each month with this fun activity. Before starting, talk about the month and try to set a goal for new books to read. These will be new books that the class has never read before. The library is a good source of books. Consider taking a field trip to the library. The kids will enjoy finding fun books and they may be able to get their own library cards. Ask about this in advance. Some will send home forms for the parents to fill out, allowing the children to get their own cards.

Create a reading tree on your class bulletin board. Cut out a tree shape with brown construction paper. Attach this to the bulletin board. Cut out several large leaf shapes with green paper. Each time the group reads a new book, write the title on a leaf and staple it to the tree. For a holiday variation, cut out a pine tree shape. Write the titles on colorful construction paper Christmas ball shapes. Staple these to the pine tree.

Write A Class Story Talk about themes found in stories for children. Talk about basic story structure and that every story has a beginning, middle and end. Come up with a list of themes used in books for children. List the themes on a chalk board or chart paper. Have the children vote on which theme they want to use for their class story. The class will then create a story based on that theme. You may want to provide the first sentence or two before allowing the children to contribute ideas.

Write the story down on chart paper. Once the story is written, the kids can create a book. Assign each student a page from the story to illustrate. You add the text. Laminate the book so it lasts all year long. The children can take turns taking the book home to share with their families. When they have all had a chance, put it in your classroom library.

Reading Wall Create a reading wall with words the kids can read. Have the parents send in labels from snack foods, cereal boxes or soup cans that their children can read. This is called environmental print and is often the earliest words kids learn to read. Cut the words from the packaging and staple to your word wall. A bulletin board or section of wall can be used.

Add to the wall throughout the year. The children's names can be put up with a picture of each child next to his name. Add other words as they are learned. This is a great literacy building activity that will last for the entire school year.

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